Omaha World-Herald Men Who Hate Women by Ivy Harper

Why do male editors of the Omaha World-Herald consistently go after women in the same scary way that vultures attack once-thriving wounded animals? They’re getting downright diabolical. Their latest salvo is a comically righteous “Editorial” that purports to chastise the Omaha Public School (OPS) system.

Really, though, it’s just another chance for the OWH to pick at what little flesh is left of the divine Ms. Sebring who I’ve grown to admire and appreciate having been through with the OWH the exact same thing but opposite. Meaning: the OWH blackballed me – and Rebekah Davis despite both of us being duly-elected 2010 Congressional candidates – whereas they tarred & feathered Sebring. But I can feel her pain. To the core.

How wrong was it for C. David Kotok, the OWH’s “Managing Editor,” to let an old grudge (Ivy Harper beat him in writing a best-selling biography of Kotok’s BFF, Senate candidate, Bob Kerrey; Kotok never did manage to get a Kerrey book published in the 1990’s) so infect his 2010 “political non-coverage” of Harper and Davis that Kotok actually denied an entire state full of Nebraska voters a single story on Harper & Davis during the 2010 Congressional campaign even though Harper, and Davis, were duly elected by thousands of Nebraska voters? Wow. Who does that. What bona fide “journalist” takes his competition and bruised ego at being upstaged by a “female” political writer so clearly into the newsroom. And who sanctions a Kotok when he commits such obvious “Journalism Malpractice?” Because OWH Editor Mike Reilly stuck up for Kotok’s candidate black-out and grudge-holding by laughing about it in one telephone call.

What a bunch of arrogant, angry Men in Suits run that place.

The OWH – which used to be called the Omaha Weird Herald but has now been dubbed The Omaha World Hypocrite – once again raised the just-now-off-the-media-radar-Nancy Sebring story under the guise of “admonishing” OPS for a lack of sunshine.

OMG, if that is not the kettle calling the pot black, then Omaha is not Nebraska’s largest city run by a coterie of men who must – as the late Swedish author, Steig Larsson believed – secretly hate women. There’s simply no other rationale for the day-in, day-out unjustifiable decisions to hound women and repeatedly publicly flog and humiliate them while the Alpha Dog Titans of the University of Nebraska Foundation – who are committing actual financial misdeeds – are treated like they’ve got royal pedigrees and worthy of winning Westminster.

I mean, come on, the cloistered, cabal-like OWH – which monitors each and every “Comment” that comes in after articles to “make sure they’re proper!” – writing about “secrecy and trust.”

That’s so far beyond laughable, it veers deeply into the pathetic.

And no, the public doesn’t buy the Fourth Estate’s index finger in their right cheek saying in faux innocence, “We’re only going after them because they’re ‘the public’ when – truth be told – the Press has more powerthan nearly all“public” entities. And sad to say, at the OWH, (mostly) men are indisputably abusing that power by bullying women.

So, let’s start investigating those who investigate others. Let’s start ferociously “covering” those who cover others. Starting right now. I want the in-house emails of the OWH affair that rocked the newsroom recently. Oh, and the demoralizing one that happened a while back at the LJS. The “public” has a right to know what kind of people are delivering the news, don’t ya know.

We need legislation to bring the Fourth Estate – the fourth branch of government, really – under the banner of good old Freedom of Information (FOI) laws so that we get to seek “newsroom documents,” collect any and all “information” we want, and then righteously print the many, many misdeeds of the Men Who Hate Women.